The Secret Passage
by Queen Eleni
Summary: Short story starring characters from Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax.


_This short story takes place about ten years after "The Unknown Ajax," one of my favorite Heyer novels. Just a bit of fun. I hope you enjoy it._

**The Secret Passage**

Mary Darracott sat sniffling on a mounting block near the stables. She was in high dudgeon, having been summarily dismissed from the company of all her elder siblings. After all her efforts to escape her nurse and join her brothers in their fishing expedition, they had told her that she was too young, and a girl besides, and had flatly refused to wait up for her. She had run after them for as long as her short legs could carry her, but had finally given up and returned to the house. There she had been scolded by her nurse and sent to bed. Nurse had promptly dozed off, and Mary had been able to make her second escape. She had looked in on her sister Elvira, in the midst of a pianoforte lesson. Upon seeing her little sister, Elvira had crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at her. It was then that Mary had fled to the stables.

Mary often felt thus sorry for herself. To be sure, she was not quite the youngest, for there was little Richmond after her, but he hardly counted. He was only a year old and couldn't even talk so anyone could understand. Mary was quite indignant that she, a young lady of five years, should be relegated to the company of Richmond and Nurse while David, Rupert, and Elvira were able to have all sorts of fun. It simply wasn't fair.

Mary looked up when she saw a grizzled man approaching her. He leaned against the fence beside her and looked up at the sky.

"It's a reet nice day, Miz Mary," he said contemplatively, in a thick brogue that not everyone could comprehend. Mary, however, could understand him perfectly. "Happen a lass like yourseln should no' be wastin' it."

"I don't _want_ to waste it," Mary said indignantly, ending her sniffles and rubbing her big blue eyes with a grubby fist. "It's not my fault if they won't let me play with them."

"Don't fratch yourseln," he advised. "No use in spoilin' tha looks o'er it."

"John Joseph, I'm not too little, am I?" Mary demanded.

"Nay then, not thee, lass! Happen those braethers and t'sister of than got t'notion in their heads."

"Well, I'm not little!" Mary declared. "And I'll show them so!"

"That's the spunk, Miz Mary! But happen tha tells t'Major about it. He'll hep tha t'think of sumpin' more than like."

"Tha's a reet good friend, John Joseph!" said Mary with a cheeky grin as she leaped down from the mounting block. John Joseph looked after her, shaking his head and laughing silently.

Mary was glad to find that Nurse was still asleep upon her return to the Dower House. The servants pretended not to notice her as she snuck about the house, looking for her father. She eventually found him in the library, bent over a ledger with brow furrowed. As he heard the door open, he looked up and smiled at her.

"Papa," she whispered, "I must speak with you!"

"Eh then, lass," he whispered back. "Look around the door and make sure your mama's not about. If she finds I'm talking to you instead of taking you back to Nurse, she'll be that angry with me."

Mary peeped around the door's edge, made certain that the hall was clear, and then walked over to her father's chair. Major Darracott picked her up and set her upon his lap.

"Now then, what's all this about?"

Mary told of her trials and sufferings of the day in vibrant detail, and ended with an account of her conversation with John Joseph.

"And you will help me, won't you, Papa?" she concluded. "I know you can!"

"What do suggest we do?" he asked, his guileless eyes twinkling down into hers. "Mind now, it wouldn't do if it were something your mother didn't like. You know how I hate getting into trouble with her."

"Maybe she could help," offered Mary.

"Maybe," said the Major, without much certainty in his voice. "Now lass, I've come up with a fine idea to make those young bullies look betwaddled. You'll just have to do as I tell you."

That evening, the Darracott children spent an hour in the company of their elders, as was their custom. Nurse hovered anxiously nearby as Grandmamma Darracott dandled little Richmond on her knee. Elvira, a slender and pretty girl nearly eight years of age, sat next to her mother as she diligently plied her needle through a handkerchief she was embroidering. David, who at nine was the eldest of the children, played his father at backgammon, while Rupert, Elvira's twin, was engaged in repeatedly standing up and knocking over a set of tin soldiers. Mary sat on a stool at her grandmother's feet, dressing her doll and waiting to make her move.

"Papa," she said at last, "Tell us a story about one of your 'ventures."

"Yes, Papa, do," said Rupert, looking up. "Tell us about when you got transported!"

"I don't like that story," complained Elvira. "I don't like to think of all those men in such horrid places."

"Well, I think you've heard all the stories I have to tell, think on," said the Major, leaning back in his chair. "How about a story from your mother?"

Mrs. Darracott glanced up at her husband, suspicion crossing her face. "My dear, what stories do I have to tell? I don't know what you are speaking of."

"Nay, love, you're forgetting!" said Major Darracott reproachfully. "When I first came to Darracott Place, you regaled me with a pack of tales all about the secret passage and the ghosts. That," he added to his children, "was before we were married. I think she was trying to scare me off."

Mrs. Darracott's look of suspicion only increased, but she merely said, "Very likely." Elvira giggled.

"Great-grandfather once started to tell me a story about a secret passage," broached David. "But then he stopped and told me it was a pack of nonsense and for me to go about my business."

"Oh dear," sighed Grandmamma Darracott, "yes, I suppose he would not quite like- well, one cannot but think that perhaps it would distress him to speak of it."

"Well, now you must tell about the passage, or these children will never let us hear the end of it, think on," said the Major to his wife. She appeared to resign herself, and began to tell the tale.

"When I was a little girl, Great-grandfather used to tell me, and the other children, about a secret passage that went from this house to the place." She paused to smile at the faces which were alight with interest. "It was built quite a long time ago and my cousins and I used to speculate as to its uses. We spent many hours of our childhood trying to find it, but we never did. It's most likely been blocked up." She darted a glance at her husband. "I'm afraid that's all there is to tell."

"You do tell a dull story, love," reprimanded the Major in a tone of disappointment. "What about the escapes made through that passage, and the ghost, and the hobgoblins and such?"

"There are no such things as ghosts," said Elvira primly, but her voice lacked conviction.

"Has no one ever discovered the passage, then?" asked David, trying to control the excitement in his voice.

"Let's find it ourselves!" burst out Rupert. "We could dig around in the cellars. I'm sure we could find it!"

"I'm not sure I want a young lad like yourself lugging a shovel around those cellars," said the Major.

"It would be quite ill-advised," put in his wife, catching on to the gist of things. "And I'm sure you would catch cold."

"Oh yes, my dear, such nasty, damp places, cellars," Grandmamma shuddered. "I do hope you won't try it. When I think of how Anthea and Claude both caught horrid colds when Oliver and Vincent dragged them through the cellars looking for that nasty passage! They were knocked up for weeks afterward."

"I don't want to go in the cellars," said Mary, widening her eyes. "They're scary."

"Oh, don't be such a ninny, Mary," said Elvira.

"She can't help being scared," said Rupert. "She's only a girl."

"Well, I'm not scared!" retorted Elvira. "I wager you'd be scared out of your wits if we were in the cellars and the candle blew out or you heard a funny noise."

"I would not!"

Predicting that the evening conversation would soon degenerate into a schoolroom brawl, the Major ordered his offspring off to bed. They obeyed, continuing to bicker as they left the room. Nurse came for Richmond and Mary, but before Mary left, her father gave her a knowing look and a wink.

"Whatever was that all about?" Anthea Darracott demanded of her husband as soon as they were alone in their bedchamber. "It seemed to me like you were doing your best to send them off searching for the passage!"

"You are a knowing one, love," said the Major admiringly as he untied his cravat. He glanced at her as she sat at her night-table, vigorously unpinning her hair. "I don't think I liked that particular way you were wearing your hair tonight. Too many little puffs."

"Don't you try to distract me, sir!" warned Anthea. "Stop talking about my hair and explain what you were about!"

"Well, I think it's time the boys and Elvira received a bit of a set-down," explained the Major. "Of course, I should have gone to you for such a thing, for you give better set-downs than any I can think of, but sometimes a man wants to try a thing for himself."

"Why," asked Anthea in a dangerously patient voice, "did you think David, Rupert, and Elvira in need of a set-down?"

"They've been rather rude to my little Mary lately, calling her a baby and such. She won't take it much longer. Ah, that girl's the image of her mother, think on, a regular little shrew she's destined to be." His wife completely ignored this comment and proceeded to ask just how he intended to give his children the desired set-down.

"Oh, I just think they'll be shown that they're not as high and mighty as they think they are," the Major said in an almost casual tone. More he would not disclose and his wife went to bed quite dissatisfied.

The next day found the three eldest Darracott children sitting under the shade of a big tree some distance from the house. Elvira had been dismissed from her lessons early due to her excellent progress on the pianoforte, and her governess had permitted her to spend the summer afternoon in the company of her brothers. They were all very eager to discuss the secret passage.

"I think we should dig it up," proposed Rupert. "It would be great fun, and only think if we were to walk all the way from here to the Place without anyone knowing. We could give Mrs. Flitwick the fright of her life!"

"Great-grandfather wouldn't at all like it," said Elvira. "I think he'd be horridly angry with us."

"It might be so shocking that he'd pop off right then and there," agreed David. "He's all of ninety, you know, and his heart's likely to give way at the least excitement."

"Well, let's not surprise him at least, then," said Rupert. "If he died, Papa would become Lord Darracott and we'd all have to go live at the Place, while it's so much jollier here."

"I'd be very sad if Great-grandfather were to die," said Elvira primly.

"Well, I wouldn't" said Rupert. "He's a cross old gadger, and you think so, too."

"Anyway, that's all beside the point," intervened David, seeing that a quarrel was likely to arise. "The question is, how are we to go about finding the passage? We can't just go around digging holes here and there."

"We must explore the cellars thoroughly," said Elvira. "We can sound all the walls and look for cracks."

"That will take a long time. I know the cellars go on practically forever," said David.

"Well, if it takes all summer, we must do it!" declared Rupert. "I'm jolly well not going to rest until we have!"

"Rupert is right," said David. "It is our family duty." In what way it was family duty he did not disclose, but neither of his siblings questioned this proclamation. And so they fell to scheming how they would search the cellars without anyone being the wiser.

"You'ns better be reet careful, or t'Major'll have me skelped!" prognosticated John Joseph as he handed two shovels to David.

"Where did you get them, John Joseph?" asked David, manfully shouldering one shovel and giving the other to Rupert, who flinched under the weight.

"Never you mind, Master Davie. Happen Miz 'Vira had best carry thah lantern. It's that dark in yonder cellars. Ah don't want to hear about no accidents, mind thah!"

He lumbered off, chuckling silently to himself. They were left at the top of the cellar stairs. Elvira picked up the lantern and lit it. David took the first step, and they all went down the stairs into the darkness.

"It is very dark," said Elvira, peering about her. "I don't think I've ever been down here before."

"Let's start over there," said David, pointing at the wall to the south. "The Place is in that direction."

"What do we do?" asked Rupert, contemplating the shovel, which he could barely move.

"Bang on the wall and see if any part sounds different," advised David. They went to work, David banging with the shovel, and Rupert pounding with his hands while Elvira held the lantern aloft and glanced nervously about for rats. After about ten minutes of this they moved on to another part of the cellar. And then another.

Every evening for three days, the children went to bed exhausted. Mary, who hadn't once run away from Nurse during those days, didn't ask any questions of them or make any pert observations. Their mother made no comment to them, but frequently cast glares in the direction of her hapless husband. And Grandmamma Darracott fretted a great deal.

"What are the children about? They ask to go play in the afternoon, but come back covered in dirt and worn out! Little Elvira looks quite peaked, and I fear Rupert will become ill! My dear," this to her daughter, "should you not find out what they are doing?"

"Mama, I know exactly what they are doing, but I am not going to interfere," said Anthea, looking up briefly from her book. "I doubt they are in any real danger."

"But what are they doing?" demanded her mother, exasperated.

"You must ask Hugo. It is all his doing."

"Now, love, I take that very unkindly!" protested Major Darracott from behind his newspaper.

"Your doing, Hugo? Why, Anthea, whatever do you mean?"

"Only that he is encouraging the children to dig for the secret passage in the cellars, Mama."

"What! Hugo, you cannot – oh, I am sure you cannot be doing so! Only think of the danger! And heaven forbid they should actually find it! The trouble it has caused us!" She was quite overcome.

"Nay, then, ma'am, don't be so downhearted!" said the Major reassuringly. "I've got everything under control. As for danger, I daresay the cellar is in more danger from those rapscallions than they are from the cellar."

It was on the fourth day that the Mary Darracott asked her elder siblings if she could join in their adventure. Frustrated by their lack of progress, they were willing for even the help of a five year-old, and they relented without much of a struggle. Mary banged the walls along with them for awhile before wandering off on her own.

"Come here!" came a yell from some distant part of the cellar. David looked about for the direction of the voice and Elvira jumped, realizing that Mary was no longer beside her.

"Is that Mary?" she asked nervously. "She's not here anymore! We'll be in such trouble if anything happens to her."

"I think she's over there," pointed David. "Let's go and find her."

"Mary!" called Rupert. "What are you doing?"

"I found it!" Mary cried. "I found the secret passage!"

Running around a corner and into a narrow chamber, Mary's siblings saw that she was right. A large board rested against one wall, and behind one edge of it was clearly an opening of some kind.

"Well done, Mary!" said David admiringly. "Rupert, help me move this board."

With much grunting and pushing, the board was moved aside, to reveal an opening about four feet in diameter. The children stood and looked into the murky darkness before them.

"Well, there it is," said David.

"What do we do now?" asked Elvira.

"Go in, of course!" said Rupert.

"No, we can't go now," objected Elvira. "I'm sure it's nearly time for our dinner."

"Elvira's right," agreed David. "We'll come back tomorrow so we have plenty of time to explore. And we should each have our own lantern. It looks to be very dark in there."

"I don't want to go in," said Mary.

"That's because you're just a little girl," said Rupert. "You're too scared."

"I am not! I just don't want to go in. I don't think Mama would like it."

"Pooh!" Rupert scoffed.

That evening, just minutes after Anthea Darracott believed her children to have gone safely to bed, Miss Mary Darracott boldly returned to the presence of her elders, appearing in her nightgown, slippers, and cap.

"Mary, what are you doing?" exclaimed Anthea, putting down her needlework. "Is something the matter?"

"You are not ill?" asked Grandmamma Darracott anxiously. "Oh, you should have put a shawl about your shoulders, how can you go walking about in only that nightgown?"

"I need to speak to Papa," said Mary primly, stepping up to the side of her father's armchair. "And I'm not at all cold."

"Eh, Mary, what's the scrape?" her father asked quizzingly.

"It's not a scrape!" she protested, feeling a sense of injustice. "I just came to tell you that I did just what you said, and David, Elvira, and Rupert are going to explore the passage tomorrow."

"Is that it, then? Well, happen you and I will have to make certain they find something." He gave her a wink, and she lost her dignity, giggling conspiratorially.

"Hugo, what have you got up your sleeve?" demanded his wife, as his mother-in-law looked on in bewilderment.

"Naught but a speck of fun, love. Now, lass," he said, addressing himself to Mary. "Come to the stables at noon, right about when Nurse falls asleep. That's where we'll prepare to spook that sister and those brothers of yours. Off to bed you go, you'll need to be well rested."

Mary obediently departed. Anthea turned upon the Major and favored him with her opinion of his pranks.

"Nay then, love, I believe you're jealous because I didn't ask you to help!"

This remark left her speechless, giving her mother opportunity to voice her concerns for the children's safety.

"And if they actually get to the other end of the passage and Lord Darracott hears of it, I don't know what shall become of us!" she concluded.

"There now, ma'am, I won't let it go as far as that," said the Major comfortingly. "Though I don't know that his lordship would be so displeased in finding the children so heedless of danger."

"You go first," said Elvira to David.

"Very well," he said, attempting a light tone, but failing miserably. Even with three lanterns held up, the passageway still looked very, very dark. He took a step forward.

"I'm not afraid," boasted Rupert scornfully, advancing beyond his brother, but taking care not to get too far ahead. They walked together for a full minute before their nerves finally began to relax.

"Well, there are no ghosts," said Elvira. "I told you there were no such things as ghosts."

"You didn't need to tell us," said Rupert. "This isn't that much fun after all. It's just a dirt tunnel. I don't see any bones, or relics of the past, or anything."

"It's still a secret passage," David reminded him, "and if we keep going, I daresay we'll end up at the Place."

"I don't see what good that is," argued Rupert, "unless we wanted to frighten the maidservants."

"What was that?" cried Elvira, stopping short, a nervous look on her face.

"I didn't hear anything," said David, but he still stopped walking.  
"Oh, don't be such a goose, Elvira," complained Rupert. But he stopped as well when he heard a loud thump coming from the shadows before them. They all stood, frozen with fear. Several more thumps ensued.

"I think we had better go back," murmured Elvira.

"You're not frightened are you?" whispered Rupert manfully.

"I don't know…." said David. Just then a deep and throbbing voice burst forth with an inhuman yell. All three children screamed, turn, and ran for their lives back down the tunnel.

"There's someone coming after us!" Elvira panted. They all heard the patter of footsteps. Looking back, Rupert caught a glimpse of filmy white blowing about not far behind him.

"It's a ghost!" he yelled, and ran faster.

They tumbled out of the tunnel, but didn't feel safe enough to stop there. They ran through the cellars and up the stairs, coming out into broad daylight, and continuing to run. The figure went after them, and they kept hearing the footsteps. They ran around the Dower House until they came to the front, where their grandfather, old as he was, was dismounting from his horse. They finally stopped upon seeing him.

"What's all this?" he barked, glaring at them. "Are those my grandchildren? Running about as if they were village brats? And what the devil is that girl doing with a sheet over her head?"

David, Rupert, and Elvira, gasping for breath, turned sharply around, and saw two chubby, pantalooned legs sticking out from underneath a white linen sheet. Hilarious giggles were to be heard.

"It's Mary!" exclaimed Rupert disbelievingly.

"The wretched girl!" cried Elvira. Mary pulled the sheet off of her, and stood up, still laughing as she curtsied to her great-grandfather.

"How do you do, sir?" she inquired politely. "I beg your pardon; we were just playing."

Lord Darracott continued to glare for several moments before he gave a sudden bark of laughter and patted Mary on the head.

"You were playing, my girl, I'll be bound! Giving these three a fright, were you? I declare, you've all the spunk of your Uncle Richmond." Mary skipped inside, accompanying Lord Darracott, not deigning to look back at her flustered siblings.

"Well!" was all Elvira could manage to utter.

"She made us look silly, without a doubt," admitted David.

"But how did she do it?" demanded Rupert, suspicious. "She couldn't have made that noise!"

Just then, their father appeared from the direction of the stables. He glanced at the sheet lying on the ground and he looked puzzled.

"Eh, now, what are you about?" he asked, picking up the sheet. "Mrs. Bluestock will be in a fine fettle when she sees what you've done to her linen."

The children looked at each other silently. Finally David spoke.

"We were using it for a game, Papa."

"Was that it, then?" For a moment, David thought he detected a gleam of wicked amusement in the Major's eyes. A thought darted into David's mind. But when he looked again, his father's eyes were as wide, blue, and guileless as they nearly always were.

"Mrs. Bluestock was in agonies over that sheet," remarked Anthea Darracott to her husband that evening.

"What sheet?"

"Oh, you don't know?" Anthea brushed her hair vigorously. "The children were using a sheet to play with this afternoon."

"Oh, that sheet! Now that you mention it, I remember hearing about it."

"Mrs. Bluestock showed me the sheet," Anthea continued, not looking at the Major. "It seemed to me that somebody had been playing at being a ghost in it! But what a ridiculous notion, to be sure!"

"You're reet there, love," agreed Major Darracott. "But then, you often take these daft notions into your head."

"Hugo!" she said awfully, putting down the brush with a loud thud and standing up. "You made Mary dress up in that sheet and chase the children! I wouldn't have been surprised if you had done it yourself!"

"I'd have been surprised if I could find a sheet large enough to hide all of me," said the Major. "I'm not what you call a smallish sort of a man, you know."

"You, sir, are more trouble than all of the children put together!" Anthea announced. "I have half a mind to relate the tale to Grandpapa so that he could berate you soundly!"

"Nay, love, I have you to do that!" said her husband, leaning down to kiss her soundly.

_Finis_


End file.
